Is it me, or does having a weapon on a caster totally useless (cosmetic wise)

throughout all my time playing wow i have always wondered why is it that caster classes (mages, locks, shamans, priests, and sometimes balance druids) never actually use the weapons equipped to them to attack or summon spells. See the reason why i like to play melee classes so much is because its badass to see them use those ridiculously large weapon like they are made out of plastic, but caster dont do that. One second they have their staff or hammer and shield in one hand, the next they are casting and it just disappears. I think that it would be awesome if shamans would shoot lightning out of their hammers and mages could use their staves with one hand and the other would shoot the fire ball or the staff would shoot it. Kind of like how Gandalf uses his staff to summon his spells.

Not sure if blizzard acknowledges this, or they do but don't have time to implement it since i suspect it would be a ton of work to re animated all the casters and whatnot. But what do you guys think? you think caster would be funner to play if the behaved that way in combat?

Sword wielding mages are not uncommon in fantasy literature per se. Gandalf for example has one too...
Generally the classic caster weapons are wands and staves. And those are usually rather humble looking.
Plus, on that aspect I agree.... Caster weaps in WoW lacking the animation of how spells are originate from them, and it would be a nice feature if they did.
It looks stupid, and not "realistic" how the staff basically sits there useless with the toon.

"The pen is mightier than the sword.. and considerably easier to write with."

I don't think I agree - In WoW I thought the spells were coming from you conjuring, not your weapon, which is why silences stop casting. Possibly as a conduit or something but that is more like a totem to me? In the other MMO's I've seen I never liked casting animations with a big staff flopping around like it doesn't weigh anything and looks kinda dumb. I do think on other fantasy settings it is appropriate because of how their magic works (think Wizards in DnD) just not WoW specifically.

/2cents

Originally Posted by Gerbert the

Because I'm sure he sits there for hours a day and does nothing at all but dissolve fruit in his mouth, right? Just staring at the floor, forgetting about work, family, or whatever

I don't think I agree - In WoW I thought the spells were coming from you conjuring, not your weapon, which is why silences stop casting. Possibly as a conduit or something but that is more like a totem to me? In the other MMO's I've seen I never liked casting animations with a big staff flopping around like it doesn't weigh anything and looks kinda dumb. I do think on other fantasy settings it is appropriate because of how their magic works (think Wizards in DnD) just not WoW specifically.

/2cents

Yeah I agree with this but some spells could use some animations, the blood elf in the TBC opening if I remember rightly uses her staff for an arcane explosion but the human mage conjures a polymorph with his hands.

Also irony is Death knights get a weapon animation for their death coil spell lol.

It would be nice but the way they are making out that the revamped character models almost killed them, this would probably takes years to develop.

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A good alternative could be for weapon enchantmets grant your weapon a spell abilitiy (that you put on your bars) and it unleashes a spell. Might be a little similar to unleashed elements though.

Yeah i agree with you and Baladash in some aspects, like how "silencing" works you do have a good point. But yeah blizzard has shown multiple times caster using their weapons to cast, so i think having it in game would be amazeballs. I mean just think how cool it would be having a shaman raise his/her hammer to when casting Lightning Storm (the aoe that pushes ppl off) or then slamming the hammer to the ground to summon an earthquake, or have a mage slam his staff to the ground to do a frost nova. I think all that would make caster look soo much cooler.

but again all that work would probably kill the animators in blizzard, and for now i just want them to finish WOD.

Yeah i agree with you and Baladash in some aspects, like how "silencing" works you do have a good point. But yeah blizzard has shown multiple times caster using their weapons to cast, so i think having it in game would be amazeballs. I mean just think how cool it would be having a shaman raise his/her hammer to when casting Lightning Storm (the aoe that pushes ppl off) or then slamming the hammer to the ground to summon an earthquake, or have a mage slam his staff to the ground to do a frost nova. I think all that would make caster look soo much cooler.

but again all that work would probably kill the animators in blizzard, and for now i just want them to finish WOD.

I want that....and I happily sacrifice 3 5-mans mid expansion for that

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

... there are lots of different types of players, with different amounts of time to play, and different tastes for the content and difficulty and time commitment they want to give to any of those pieces of content. The person that plays for an hour or so a few times a week is playing the same game as the person that plays five hours every night.....

I just look at them as power sources. They are what power up your spells. If a mage didn't have it's staff he'd be powerless. Then again you can unequip your weapon and still cast spells so with that I guess you can just say that the weapons just make your spells more potent. I don't know, just use your imagination. Plus I like the way staves look on mages and it's good enough for me.

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I just look at them as power sources. They are what power up your spells. If a mage didn't have it's staff he'd be powerless. Then again you can unequip your weapon and still cast spells so with that I guess you can just say that the weapons just make your spells more potent. I don't know, just use your imagination. Plus I like the way staves look on mages and it's good enough for me.

That is effectively what they are from just a gameplay perspective. Caster weapons have low relative weapon damage and a lot of spell power on them.

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